8th Ed. Advice vs VC

[Pofadder]

Since returning to the hobby a couple of months ago I have not played the new VC much, my last two games I played was against a canny general that plays a tactically sound game keeping things tight to benefit from ld/movement bubble.

I find mostly that his magic makes my life miserable even with becalming cogitation and dispel scroll and of course shouts...

Magic, what to prioritize? I am starting to feel invocation of Nehek is a must stop. because he runs three casters all with invo. My sallies are having a field day but he brings all causualties back so when we get to combat all my whittling down of his troops are for naught. Would you guys agree that invo must be stopped at all costs?

Also I am having problems with shouts, I try to poison / magic them down, but the VC general does not expose his TG or ME or TB (shout attacks) leaving little to no room to get chamo or skinks around his back lines to shoot (even then he just shouts them down.) Magic is fickle...yesterday I played lore of light and used focus fire to try and get rid of shouts / ethereals. But he saves all his DD to stop the dmg spells. Because he knows after a Van Hels a spirit host keeps a stegadon tied up for the rest of the game.

My two scar-vet cowboys got shouted down whether they are in combat or not.

To summarize my questions; Is invo a must stop spell ( It certainly feels that way) and give my some thoughts on how to handle shouts as they seem to be a handful. I have read previous threads and in theory using light MM etc to kill a TG is easy, but this VC general knows what to stop. & even if the spell goes thru and I fluff the wounding he gets healed up to full wounds in next magic phase.

My list was pretty balanced
Light slann, Becalming, rumination, dispel scroll, BSB standard of disc
2 cowboys, one with votff + dawnstone other one burning blade, 1+sv, 5+ wsv
2 block of 30 saurus warrs (FC)
2 units skink skirmishers
2 units of 5 chamo skinks
1 Ancient steg
1 baby steg
2 units of 1 salamander

Any help would be appreciated I will not do a complete batrep but I am normally a "safe" player that keeps as much as I can to keep my units within IP bubble, yet scar vets needs to go hunt something

Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Stonecutter]

That seems like a solid vamp list with a very good general running it so there are no easy ways of dealing with anything. By the sounds of it, the vamp lord is not tooled to shred your units and you are winning combat so I think it is a matter of a few changes to exploit your own army's strengths while denying the vamp high value targets for the shouts. Here are a few ideas that may help:

1) Given the number of shout attacks, it may be an idea to dump the steggies and go with something else that is good in combat. Skrox come to mind as an excellent counter to shouts since skinks can die in droves and you won't really care and the unit is immune to stomp. Attach a scar vet to the unit and it can really hammer down a ME or TG and the skinks will once again be ablative wounds. Skrox also have excellent movement and so can get into a flanking position quite easily.

2) Infantry blocks - I am not sure what the vamp player is running for core troops but going with a big block of temple guard may work better than saurus since they have higher WS & S without buffs. Temple guard will absolutely decimate skellies and can do a good job on ghouls as well. In addition, they can take the flaming banner and negate the regen save granted by the ME, leaving the slaan to go with LD 10.

3) Preventing invocation - IoN is NOT a must stop spell although it is annoying. The easiest way to reduce the effectiveness of IoN is to keep in mind the rules for resurrecting fallen warriors. To be more precise, the rules state that "Raised models may never displace enemy units; if there is not enough room, any excess models are wasted." . Accordingly, if the unit is attacked from the rear, it can only recover models to complete the rear rank since doing more than this would displace the enemy troops. Similarly, models being recovered via IoN may never come within 1" of another friendly or enemy unit that is outside the combat. If some terradons/skinks/sallies park themselves behind the unit and move up during your turn to maintain the 1" spacing, the only models that may be recovered will be in the rear rank.

4) Combat - when going into combat, try to set it up so that there is maximum static combat resolution in your favour to begin with and throw everything at the combat with the intent of wiping out the unit. A combo charge from temple guard on the front with skrox & SV on a flank will do this and allow a fair amount of active combat resolution in your favour as well.

5) Magic - Given that there are no real killer spells in the vamp lore and you are getting hen pecked to death by IoN, either the cube of darkness or diadem of power may be a better option. The latter item is extremely effective against spamming since it will negate 1-2 single die castings per turn - a huge swing in your favour. Life is also a good lore to use since it helps protect your units and allows you to repeatedly heal SVs or other multi-wound models.

6) Sallies - I would either go with 2 x twin packs or leave them at home. A couple of twin packs would markedly increase the devastation on rank and file and also provide a decent combat unit that could take out small units (corpse cart, dogs ) or even provide a critical rear charge.

Any way you slice it, vamps are a good army and extremely challenging to deal with when run by a good general. Good luck and good hunting.

 

[Eagleblaze]

I don't remeber exactly if the banner you're running is the LD banner but if it is then, personally I don't put much emphasis on a LD10 slann. I don't remember the exact stats but a LD9 coldblooded BSB has something like a 90%+ pass rate.

That being said how effective do you find the dispel scroll?

I would suggest a feedback scroll/banehead combo to take down one of his vamps that is also unfortunate enough to be a spell-caster but it may be that he's not throwing enough dice at spells in order to make that a viable option. (still an idea).

If this were me then I'd play a game of point denial/VampHunter.
With that in mind I would aim for a death slann with cupped hands/banehead (if not the suggestion above).
I think death has a few unique benefits here:
1 - As saurus would win it a straight-fight with skellies you may be able to run a points denial strategy. In so doing Death has 3 good spells that allow you to snipe his characters. 2 are relatively low casting value and don't allow for armour saves. If you can keep your units (don't get swamped) and take out his characters you could win on points alone.
2 - Death has a spell which allows for a -3 penalty to LD which is another 3 skels or wounds that would be lost to a lost combat (if I remember correctly).
3 - If in doubt throw a lot of dice at Purple Sun and watch as he spends 10 minutes taking I1 skels off the board. (Then cupped hands the miscast onto a vamp).
4 - Given the diversity of the Death Lore your opponent will need to try and work out each turn what you're aiming for: character snipes or purple sun his hordes. Either would make me nervous as a VC player. This hesitancy may lead to a better magic phase for you.

Hope this helps.

Let us know how your next game(s) go.

Cheers
-Eagle

 

[n810]

Oh its closer than that, it's 98% vs 99%
(Cold blooded LD9 vs Cold blooded LD10)

 

[Pofadder]

Thanks for the replies all.

I will try some of the suggestions on my next VC game.

I will give the cube or diadem a go as well. Although I am not to fond of the other arcane scrolls as it still lets the spell through, although against VC it could pay dividends seeing that if you take out their general its game over...

It gives me the chance to practise with Skrox unit, as I have read tactica on this forum but find them difficult to use successfully. (even on the flanks)

Our group of friends have some items which by gentleman's agreement we leave at home, because it just so nasty. Banehead is one of those items because it is just ridiculous on a slann with cupped hands or feedback scroll. Like ring of Hotek for DE (I'd prefer they leave pendant of Khaleth at home rather lol) etc

I suppose I can try Death again, though I have tried 2 games with a fully kitted out Death slann (before the gentleman's agreement) and it killed nothing

At the end of the game I felt 560 odd point Slann gave no benefit at all. Maybe I should keep trying though.

Thanks again.

 

[Wreckr]

i have little experience with VC but the 1 game i did play at 1k points at a tourny last week.. i got smashed... altho i was unlucky in some points they are a tough army to fight... even more so in a hardcore enviroment... =( but good luck bro and would love to hear how the game went

 

[Questioner]

You could go with Life to allow you to res models as well, not as efficiently true, also Dwellers if you can get it through would hit blocks of infantry nicely.

But yeah, as a VC player, I don't think there are any easy counters to that sort of list/tactics.


You could ask over at http://www.vampirecounts.net/, they know the army very well.

 

[Wreckr]

yer i playd to VC players 2days ago both at 1k points.. and double 1k lists (so 2k all up)..... lets say im over playin VC... TG came va screamed my priest T1 and then turnd and screamed my stegadon... game ova.. ahaha game 2 saw the same thing TG screaming and banshies..? (hero guys who also can scream) simply run around and scream and deny charges the hole game..

am i the only guy who thinks at 1k points lizards are abit lacking..?